Uncovering Biodiversity Before It Disappears

Trish Mace is an Ocean Education Specialist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. She also manages the Museum’s partnership with the National Science Foundation...

Aug 22, 2012

This amazing sea toad, Chaunax sp., has modified pectoral fins it uses to walk along the bottom.

Credit: Barry Brown/Substation Curacao

Sea Toad Specimen from Caribbean

This amazing sea toad, Chaunax sp., has modified pectoral fins it uses to walk along the bottom.

Credit:

Barry Brown/Substation Curacao

Purple Sea Urchin

This purple urchin Paleopneustes cristatus is seldom seen by itself, and can be found in groups of hundreds. Dr. Dave Pawson, a senior scientist at NMNH who studies deep-sea echinoderms, is testing if the fertilized eggs of this urchin sink or are buoyant, an important question in figuring out this urchin's life cycle. This urchin specimen was collected at around 800 feet during the 2012 field season of the Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP).

Credit:

Trish Mace, Smithsonian Institution

A Baby Moray Eel, or a Really Small Adult?

This is an unidentified moray eel, collected from 650 feet off the coast of Curacao. Researchers don't yet know if this is a young eel, or a small full-grown one. By analyzing this moray's DNA and comparing it to DNA from known morays in the Caribbean, they will determine if this small eel is a juvenile of a known species.

Credit:

Trish Mace, Smithsonian Institution

Tusk Shell Hermit Crab

When this tusk shell was brought up from a dive it was a surprise when a hermit crab poked out. The large claw that you see can be pulled in to cover the shell opening.

Credit:

Barry Brown/Substation Curacao

Little Sea Star

It’s an honor to have something or someone named after you. Dr. David Pawson, Senior Research Scientist and Curator of Echinoderms at NMNH, has several genera and species, living and fossil, named after him. He says this little sea star, Pawsonaster parvus, is by far the prettiest! It is a small pentagonal species, little more than an inch across (hence the species name parvus, from Latin for "small"), orange on top and whitish underneath. It lives in depths of 30-600 meters, and it is known to live from the coast of North Carolina, through the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, to Uruguay in South America.

Credit:

Trish Mace, Smithsonian Institution

Sea Cucumber in Curaçao

Some sea cucumbers, including this species collected at 830 feet deep off Curacao, host a slender, eel-shaped fish called a pearl fish, which lives in its anus by day and emerges to feed at night. You might not be able to see it now, but...

Credit:

Barry Brown/Substation Curacao

Pearlfish from a Sea Cucumber

...out it comes! This pearl fish lives inside the sea cucumber's anus by day, and emerges by night to feed. In some cases, no harm is done to the host sea cucumber, but in some species the pearlfish can function as a parasite, causing harm to its host by eating its gonads and other internal organs!

Credit:

Cristina Castillo, Smithsonian Institution

Editor's Note: See more information and details about the organisms displayed in the slideshow here.

Researchers who come to Curaçao to take part in DROP (Deep Reef Observation Project) aren’t running on sleep; they’re running on passion, curiosity and a drive to not waste a moment of opportunity to explore. (And, yes, a fair bit of caffeine.)

We are in as much an age of discovery as were Lewis and Clark, Alfred Russel Wallace or Austin Hobart Clark (whose travels on-board theAlbatross in 1906 contributed to building NMNH's collections). But our current age of exploration is technology-driven. We are improving our ability to observe and sample in formerly unreachable territories, such as the mid- and deep ocean. And with the ability to observe smaller and smaller dimensions, “new” worlds are opening up and being observed by ocean scientists and explorers, such as those from the 10-year Census of Marine Life.

The sobering reality, however, is that the growing rate of extinction means that much of life’s current diversity could be lost before we even know it exists. We need even more explorers!

In a desire to learn about deep-reef diversity and function, Smithsonian researchers and their colleagues are combining traditional and cutting-edge practices. DROP is unique in that it uses a submersible, ARMS (Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures), taxon-specific collecting structures, and genetic barcoding techniques, to explore and document reefs below the reach of SCUBA to a depth of 1000 feet (300 meters). Scientists from Smithsonian facilities in Washington DC, Florida, and Panama, along with colleagues from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Coral Reef Research Foundation, are combining expertise for this multi-year project. They are in year two of the DROP project and have not been disappointed. Along a stretch of coastline no more than a quarter of a mile from the home port of the submersible Curasub, they are discovering suspected new species with almost every day of field work, including fishes, snails, bivalves, crabs and worms!

The trail from suspected to confirmed new species has many steps. Verification means genetic sampling and careful morphological comparisons with known species held in museum collections. DROP moves from the field, to the lab, to collections and back again. This journey of exploration is exciting and varied. It takes curiosity, flexibility, stamina, a range of investigational skills and a passport. And, oh yes, that cup of coffee doesn’t hurt.